South Sudan

The Republic of South Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa, with its capital being the city of Juba. South Sudan became independent from Sudan in January 2011 after 98.83% of South Sudanese voters supported secession, as the mostly-Christian and animist south was tired of being subjected to Muslim rule from the north. The secession came after the 22-year-long Second Sudanese Civil War, which saw the secessionist Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) - led by John Garang and Salva Kiir Mayardit - force the Sudanese government to end sharia law in the south in 2005. The South Sudanese government would inherit several issues upon independence, including the question over the ownership of Hegelig (leading to a brief border war with Sudan) and ethnic conflict between the Dinka and Nuer peoples, which culminated in the South Sudanese Civil War in 2013. President Salva Kiir Mayardit's Vice-President Riek Machar led the predominantly-Nuer SPLM-IO rebel group against Kiir's predominantly-Dinka SPLM and SPLA soldiers, leading to 300,000 deaths and over 1,800,000 people being displaced.